Saturday, December 30, 2006

- Have you heard of the battle between HD-DVD and Blue-ray? They are the two new DVD technologies fighting it out for supremacy of your TV and computer. Both sides have major contributors. HD-DVD has Time/Warner and Microsoft. Blue-ray has Sony and the adult entertainment industry. I have followed this struggle fairly closely, and from everything I have read, the battle is almost over. Looks like HD-DVD will win. Here is an article explaining why:http://news.digitaltrends.com/talkback158.html

- Since I am a huge Batman fan, it's only natural that I would also be a fan of The Shadow. Alec Baldwin did a movie adaptation of the pulp crime-fighter 12 years ago, but the movie was dreadful and tanked at the box office. Well, now the director of the wildly popular Spider-Man movies is taking a crack at Lamont Cranston. Personally, I don't care for Sam Raimi's directing style, and I think the Spider-Man movies are mediocre at best, but at least someone is willing to take another shot at the man who can cloud men's minds:The Shadow returns

- Since we are on the subject of movies...do you think that every morning, when Harrison Ford wakes up, he thanks the almighty that he met George Lucas? Probably not, but he should. Yesterday uncle George told the press that they are finally doing a 4th Indiana Jones movie. It starts filming in 2007, and will be released in 2008. 2008 is shaping up to be a very interesting movie-year. A new Batman movie, an Iron Man movie, and now an Indiana Jones movie.http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,240177,00.html- NASA plans a permanent moon-base by 2024. It's about time!Back to the Moon

- I didn't know that Hunter S. Thompson grew up in Louisville. That must explain why his descriptions of the Kentucky Derby are so darn funny and bizarre. Here is his most famous article about the 1970 Derby:http://www.derbypost.com/hunter.html

- As many of you know, I am going back to ASU this spring to finish my degree in computer science. I am taking another crack at calculus. I haven't taken a calculus class in 10 years, but I am looking forward to the challenge. I found the following ASU calculus readiness test on the internet. After looking over the test, I am encouraged. I can answer most of these questions, but not necessarily in the proper fashion. I think I will print this test, and do each question correctly before my class starts.http://math.asu.edu/fym/calcreadinesstest.html

- A few weeks ago I received a very funny, and very surprising phone message from the madman and socialist-stooge Alec Baldwin! When I answered the phone, it sure seemed like Mr. Baldwin was actually talking to me. He knew my name, knew where I was from, even knew what I do for a living and that I like to play video games! After some investigation, I found that the official NBC website for the TV show 30 Rock (which I highly recommend you watch. It's a well-written show) allows you to send personalized voice messages recorded by Alec Baldwin to anyone with a phone number. I suspect whomever played this prank on me also played it on many of the people who read this site:http://www.sptimes.com/2006/12/25/Floridian/Heard_from_Alec_Baldw.shtml

Thursday, December 07, 2006

- Perhaps you heard of a new internet technology called RSS (Real Simple Syndication.) It allows you to pull information from numerous websites, and display all of this information on a single website, so you don't have to bounce from page to page to get your information. If you find yourself viewing lots of websites each day, I highly recommend you look into RSS:http://www.techiediva.com/weblog/2006/11/the_simple_way_.html

- Do you know who invented radar? Thomas Edison? Inventor of the radio, Guglielmo Marconi? Brilliant German scientists? No, no, and no. If you haven't heard this before, I doubt you will believe it...American 1930s movie starlet Hedy Lamarr helped invent radar! You can read all about her here:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedy_Lamarr